Ghost Light
by Mrs.Nivanfield
Summary: A ghost light is just as beautiful as it is dangerous. After what happened in Africa, Chris Redfield has troubles returning to his everyday duties. While Claire does her best to help her brother enjoy his life again, he recollects everything that has led up to this point, trying to come to terms with a certain ghost of his past that has been haunting him for more than a decade. CxW
1. Sunset

**~ 1 ~ Sunset**

"Don't you want to eat anything, Chris?"

Claire's soft voice startles me and gets me out of my thoughts, back to the table. I shake my head as if that could shake off the daydreams that have been haunting me for more than a month now, and look up to her. She is standing next to the dinner table with a breadbasket in her hand and looks at my empty plate with worried gray-blue eyes.

"You already know..." I answer and close my eyes. In a moment she will give me a lecture again.

But my prediction doesn't come true. Seconds pass with nothing audible but the sound of the boiling coffee in the coffee machine. Then suddenly I feel her hand on my shoulder. I open my eyes again and look up to my sister who is still looking back at me.

"Don't you finally want to tell me what happened? It might help you," she suggests, but I don't want to talk about it. To do that, I would have to tell her the truth first.

"Another time," I promise her and she leaves the breadbasket on the table as she goes to check on the coffee.

Sighing, I look at the floor-to-ceiling glass front of the living-dining-room. On the other side of the balcony railing the sun is going down, slowly disappearing behind the mountains in the distance and shining its reddish light through our windows.

It was an evening just like this when it happened back then.

It's been pretty much exactly eleven years by now. I was still new to the S.T.A.R.S. division of Raccoon City, at that time still a dreamy little industrial town in the Arklay Mountains. Its police department gave me another chance after my screwed up career at the Air Force. I had never been good with authorities which eventually led to my dismissal. But with S.T.A.R.S. everything was different.

Our captain Albert Wesker was relatively new himself when I was recruited for the Alpha team back then, and yet we weren't the only newcomers.

Jill Valentine joined shortly after me as the machinery expert, and that same day Wesker decided we all should go get a drink in the evening to get to know each other better. The sun was about to go down when we entered the bar Black Jack and had long ago yielded to the moon and the stars when we left it again. I became friends with Jill and Barry Burton and talked a lot with them until they had to go early – Barry had his family at home and Jill wasn't the type for long nights – and leave me with the others I barely knew.

Brad Vickers, our pilot and hacker, already felt sick after a couple of drinks and had to leave as well, and Joseph Frost was so drunk at one point that he couldn't drive or find the way home anymore, so Wesker and I – the only ones that could still think clearly – decided to bring him to the Raccoon City Police Department to have him sober up in a cell.

If only back then I had known what I know today, I probably wouldn't have gone to the police department with Wesker, because I spent the night in a cell as well. Unlike Joseph, though, I didn't simply fall asleep. I don't know if it was the time of day, my drunken state or something else, but I got much closer to my captain during that night than I was used to at that time.

It all began with a friendly conversation, once more we discussed the highlights of the evening, made some fun of Joseph, and naturally, everything seemed a bit more amusing than it really was because of our light-headed state, until suddenly he said: "I am glad you found the time to come with us tonight."

That was the moment when the conversation became personal.

"My pleasure. It was great to get to know the others from the team," I answered.

Wesker stopped me by waving his hand. "Honestly, as far as they're concerned, it would have been enough for me to check their files. Actually it was my plan to get to know _you_..."

Something about his behavior changed. Only subtly, but noticeably. And something about my feelings changed as well; I got goose bumps. So he had just wanted to get to know me better. The others didn't seem to be that important to him.

"Do you know how long I've been watching you, Chris?" he asked, wearing his characteristic sunglasses despite the darkness, completely hiding his eyes and with that his look. That was one of the peculiarities of Albert Wesker; no one could see through him. He always had his sunglasses on, even at night.

What he said to me, the tone of his voice, his posture... Everything in his appearance gave me the expression that he had a personal interest in me, the nature of which could hardly be overlooked. At first I thought it was just my imagination. Wesker had always, or at least so it seemed to me, preferred me over the others in our team, but even so I had never hit on the idea that he _wanted_ me.

Did I want him as well? I don't know. But my body reacted to him. The goose bumps made me feel really cold when he touched me. A tingling feeling that I didn't know whether I should enjoy or fight against, went through my body from top to bottom, and for a moment I thought I was trapped in a dream. This couldn't really be happening... or could it?

I was too perplexed to act, go along or fight. All I could do was just stand there, speechless, and stare at him with my eyes wide open, afraid but at the same time excited about what he would do next. My captain's face remained expressionless, and only now I realized what he had meant by saying that he'd been watching me for so long. And how easy it was for him.

I remembered my youth, the time when I liked to put on sunglasses myself, to hide my looks from others. Could it be possible that he wore his for the exact same reason? _How_ long had he been watching me without letting me notice, and how often had he probably gone through this situation in his mind till he finally decided that here and now was the right time to make it reality? The feeling that my own captain was basically a stalker sent chills down my spine, but in a way that it flattered me as well.

"You're one of my best men, Chris," said Wesker, who obviously enjoyed saying my name at the end of every sentence, and I noticed how I lightly blushed from the ambiguity of this statement. I was a trained pilot and an unmatched sharp shooter, the latter being my position in the Alpha team... but Wesker meant something else.

He backed me up against the cold wall of the cell right next to Joseph's, his left hand slowly went under my T-shirt and stroked my abs, the right one my backside. This way he didn't have a free hand to hold my face in place while he brought his lips closer to mine, but he didn't need to anyway. I was frozen like a statue.

And then he kissed me. Chills, goose bumps, heart pounding, and then there was that other warm feeling coming out of nowhere. I managed to free myself from my frozen state just barely enough so I could close my eyes, and can't remember anything after that.

Either way, early the next morning, Joseph, who was confused and stricken by headaches, woke me up with the question why I was sitting on the cell floor, leaning against the wall, with a hand in my open pants...


	2. A city in crisis

**~ 2 ~ ****A city in crisis**

"Okay, Chris, I can't force you to eat, but listen to me at least. I want you to meet someone."

Once again Claire's voice gets mixed up with the memory of my past, taking me back to our mutual present. I look away from the setting sun and at her instead.

"He's a friend of mine, and you already know him, actually," she explains. "His name is Piers. He's been to my birthday party last month."

The name rings a bell. And then I remember again. A tall, slender guy in his early twenties with spiky hair, roughly resembling the person I was eleven years ago. It's the only reason why I still remember him. Claire has so many friends it's difficult to keep track of everyone. The house was overcrowded on her thirtieth birthday.

"What about him?" I ask.

"Well, you're looking for new recruits for your BSAA team, right? Piers is an excellent sharp shooter and used to be with the police, just like you. I told him about your profession at the party, and he was interested."

I sigh. "Claire, we don't just take anyone. The BSAA is fighting against international bioterrorism, that's something completely different from the police, so don't annoy me with friends of yours who are just keen on an adventure."

I feel sorry for what I said just the moment after I said it. Since I'm back from my mission in Africa, I suffer from problems to keep my temper under control, but my sister is definitely not the person I should take it out on. Not with everything she does for me.

But she just smiles, ignoring my tantrum, and says: "That's just why you should get to know him better. I know it usually doesn't work this way, but give him a chance! I invited him for today, he should be here soon."

Claire still thinks that post-traumatic stress disorder after the mission in Africa is what bothers me. She's partly right about that: That I haven't been the same as before for more than a month now has something to do with Africa. But the ghost haunting my dreams at night, and sometimes even by day, is not called Uroboros or Majini – no, it carries the name of the man who started it all: Albert Wesker.

At first I thought it had been just a dream. I don't remember what I told Joseph after the night in the cell, but the poor guy was busy enough with his hangover to not be bothered by my problems too much.

I had a whole weekend to think about what might or might not have happened, and only when I appeared to work on Monday morning with Wesker treating me just as usual, as if nothing had ever happened, I came to the conclusion that really nothing had happened after all. Nothing but a dream, I was sure about it now. But still, it wouldn't give me any peace anytime soon. Why did I _dream_ something like that? The thought that I might have fallen in love with Wesker without ever noticing that I felt attracted to men seemed ridiculous to me. I was twenty-five years old and quite sure about my identity, even though I have to admit that women had rarely played a big role in it.

Days, weeks passed, and everything, including my thoughts, went back to normal. I decided to no longer think about it, but take care of the really important things, namely my job. Raccoon City was haunted by a new crisis with sharp teeth and an insatiable hunger for human flesh. It all began in May; every now and then we received reports about citizens disappearing in the outskirts, usually reappearing dead after some time, mauled by rabid dogs, it seemed.

Everything got confusing when one of the autopsy reports said that some of the bite marks on the dead bodies had been caused by human teeth. "Confusing" eventually turned into "scary" when the rumor spread that one of the bodies had suddenly risen during the autopsy and attacked the forensic pathologists. Jill had theories we discussed several times during the meetings with the entire S.T.A.R.S. division, but nothing seemed to make sense.

I once spent half a night in the records room to search for any clues we might have overlooked so far. In the meantime there were numerous files about the grisly cases and I searched every one of them, without success. It was devastating. Some crazy people were killing our citizens by the city limits, and we, the elite unit of the police, couldn't do anything to stop them. I would have loved to take out my sniper rifle and shoot something with it, but there was no target.

My insecurity concerning the captain was something I had completely forgotten in the course of that long night, so I didn't mind meeting him in the waiting room by the reception when I went there to take a little break. He seemed as exhausted as I was, sitting on the only couch with his legs spread and his head leaning against the backrest – an unusual sight. When he heard me approach, he looked up without taking off the sunglasses he always wore.

"Chris! Still around?"

I rubbed my sore eyes and made myself comfortable next to him. "The current case is still bothering me. I can't go home now, it would follow me into my bed anyway."

"And so you stay here to dig through files, looking for a clue. Your employee morale is praiseworthy, Chris. As I said: You're one of my best men."

I was just about to reach into my pocket to take my lighter and cigarettes out, but froze in the middle of the movement. What had Wesker just said? There was only one time I had heard him praise me for being one of his best men, namely during our intimate encounter in the cell which was supposed to never have happened...

"Can I have one too?" asked Wesker, who saw where my hand was going and knew I was a smoker. Confused, I finished the movement, took lighter and cigarettes out and held the latter out to him. He scrutinized every single cigarette as if he wasn't sure which one to pick, but eventually chose one. I did the same.

"Do you know what fascinates me about you?" Wesker reached into his own pockets to look for something, a lighter obviously. "It says in your leaving certificate of the Air Force that you can be very stubborn and have problems with authorities. That's strange, because it's not the impression I've had of you so far, and I've been your captain for months."

"Mhm..." It was all I managed to say while I was lighting my cigarette. The waiting room was supposed to be a no-smoking area, but no one was here at that time of the night anyway, and since even Wesker did it...

"You don't seem to have problems following _my_ orders." He didn't find a lighter and held his cigarette out to me. "Give me a light."

I obeyed, to which he replied: "See?", and then he took the now lit cigarette to his lips with an impish grin.

I couldn't take it anymore. Till one minute ago, I had no longer been thinking that my dream about the incident in the cell could be more than just a dream, but the tone of Wesker's voice sounded just like back then when he had said that he liked to watch me. He must have done the same today, because otherwise, how could he know that I had browsed through files? I had been alone in the records room. I just had to call him out on it.

"Wesker?"

"Oh, why so formal?" he interrupted me at once. "I call you by your first name too, right? Just call me Albert."

"Wesker," I insisted to not follow another order of his, "I need to ask you something. Back then, after our evening at the Black Jack..."

Once again I wasn't able to finish, but this time Wesker didn't interrupt me with words. It was the way his lips pulled on his cigarette. It downright hypnotized me, but I managed to tear my eyes away from it before my thoughts could get carried away to spheres where they didn't belong.

Wesker tilted his head to the side and blew the smoke of his last pull into my face. "Don't be shy. If you want to ask your captain something, just ask. Or would it be easier for you if I ordered you to?"

I didn't know what to say, but he didn't leave me much time to think about it before he started to speak again. "You know, a few weeks ago in the cell downstairs, you weren't so shy. Of course you had to thaw a bit at first, but after that, you followed every one of my orders and did things I would never have expected a guy like you to do."

I stared at him with my eyes wide open. So it _had_ actually happened, and it hadn't stopped where my memory did. A cold shiver ran down my back. What the hell had Wesker done to me?

Although he didn't return my look, but kept on taking pulls on his cigarette as cool as a cucumber, he seemed to know exactly that I was staring at him, because he laughed and said: "Calm down, Chris, I'm just kidding. It was kiss, nothing else. But a good one, if you allow me to say that."

"Why did you kiss me?" I asked, relieved and startled at the same time. Relieved because there was nothing I had forgotten, startled because Wesker was talking about it as if it was nothing special, after weeks of making me think that nothing had ever happened between us.

"Oh, I just felt like it," he said, shrugging as if it didn't concern him at all. "But before you consider reporting me to the police for sexual harassment, let me tell you that there was nothing you didn't want as well. And _how_ you wanted it! If you'd had it your way, we wouldn't already have stopped after the kiss... But you were also pretty drunk, there was no challenge."

He dropped his half-smoked cigarette on the clean ground and got up, not his first unusual action on this day. Yet I still couldn't stop staring at him. For a moment I thought I was dreaming. I had been drunk in the cell, now I was exhausted and tired... Was it really happening? But there was a much more interesting question: Did I _want_ it to be really happening?

"Get undressed," Wesker said, positioning himself in front of me with his legs apart. "That's an order."

I wanted to protest, to tell him that it didn't work this way, that it didn't work at all, because first of all he was a man, and secondly my superior, who, it seemed, I didn't know nearly as well as I had thought...

But the only thing I said was: "Here? Now?", after taking a look around and perking up my ears to make sure that nobody was here apart from us. This situation was just too unbelievable, too unrealistic, yet it was still real.

"If I had wanted us to go somewhere else, I would have said so. But if you prefer the S.T.A.R.S. office, I don't mind." Wesker was already handling the belt of his pants – he was serious! –, but didn't lose sight of me for one second and watched every one of my movements through his sunglasses which were completely non-transparent from the outside. "Well, will you hurry up?"

I hadn't been smoking my cigarette for a long time. It was glowing in my hand until I dropped it, shook my head and fled the waiting room as fast as possible, ignoring my growing erection while I could...


	3. Wesker's other side

**~ 3 ~ ****Wesker's other side**

"You better take off your clothes before he arrives."

I almost jump. "What are you saying?"

Claire tilts her head in the way she always does when she thinks that something is wrong with me, and replies: "I said you better change your clothes before Piers arrives. Or do you want to greet him in this attire?"

I look down at myself and realize I'm still wearing my pajamas. It's already evening, but I haven't gotten dressed the whole day. That's not new anymore. I've become, as Claire calls it, a "layabout".

She was the first to notice that something wasn't right when I came back from Africa in the middle of March this year. After all that happened there, I started to let myself go, hardly leaving the house except for work, and spending the weekends in my pajamas. I refuse to see a therapist because they wouldn't understand. I don't understand myself either.

Early in April Claire decided to have me move in with her for a while so she can at least keep an eye on me while I don't talk to her. She does everything she can to make me feel better. So I'll do her the favor and at least take a look at that Piers, even though I can't promise that he'll get what he wants.

"Alright, I'm going," I tell her, leave the dining table and go up the stairs to the former guest room, which is now my bedroom. I gather some clothes from the wardrobe, approach the bed – this time even without hitting my head on the roof slope – and take off the pajamas. Doing that, I can't help remembering the way Wesker undressed me.

After the incident in the waiting room he went back to pretending nothing had happened. During the following week I tried several times to call him out on it, carefully making sure that I never was in a drunk or tired state and there were always enough people at the RPD so he wouldn't try to seduce me in his very own way. But he always put me off, pretending not to know what I was talking about, and once in a while I caught myself doubting my memory. But this time a false memory was impossible because I still knew exactly how I had left the waiting room and what I had done after that. That smug guy intended to drive me crazy with his games, but I wouldn't allow it. We both had better things to take care of, especially during that fateful night when we received an emergency call from Bravo Team.

Bravo Team, which was second-in-command after Alpha Team and consisted of six members as well, was sent to investigate the forest beyond the city limits because the amount of victims had increased dramatically. But the forest seemed cursed; the Bravos were just gone when their emergency call reached us, their chopper crashed and we lost contact.

The Alphas were sent in as back-up and the catastrophe took its course: Joseph was eaten alive by mutated dogs, causing Brad to panic and fly off with the chopper, Barry went lost during the escape, and Wesker, Jill and I barely managed to flee into the abandoned Spencer Estate in the middle of the forest, which, as it turned out, was not as abandoned as it seemed at first.

A noise in the adjoining room caught our attention and Wesker sent me to check it while he remained in the foyer with Jill. I soon found out what had caused the noise: Kenneth, a member of Bravo Team, had fired a shot to defend himself against the cannibal that was feasting on him when I entered the scene. When I returned to the foyer to report, Jill and Wesker had mysteriously disappeared.

It would take too much time to list every single detail and every secret of that horrible night and the horror mansion in the middle of the Arklay Forest. The synopsis: Umbrella, the great pharmaceutical concern ruling half of the town, had released the artificially created T-virus in the mansion, which literally turned any infected into a living dead – and a flesh-eating one as well. The secret experiments of the Umbrella Corporation were terrible enough by themselves, so that my investigations brought about only one piece of news that hit me even harder than that crime: Albert Wesker, our captain, blindly trusted by all S.T.A.R.S. members, was hand in glove with Umbrella.

"I see you've figured it out," he said to me calmly when I confronted him about it in one of the laboratories beneath the mansion. "Well, I wasn't expecting anything else anyway. You're my best man, Chris."

Immediately afterward he fired a shot at Rebecca Chambers, Bravo Team's medic, who I had found in the estate and who had accompanied me into the lab. Not the first member of the S.T.A.R.S. unit Wesker tried to kill single-handedly. She was wearing a bullet-proof vest, but the bullet hit her with a force that knocked her out nonetheless. And then Wesker turned to me again.

"I won't kill you, Chris," he promised. "You're too good for that. And I have different plans." He told me about his plans to betray Umbrella like he had betrayed S.T.A.R.S. and to disappear into thin air along with the collected material he should have handed over to his superior. On top of that, he offered me to become his partner, but I didn't want to have anything to do with his inhuman ways.

Having learned all of this, I tried to persuade him to turn himself in, promising that a self-indictment would grant him extenuating circumstances, and that it was not too late yet to change. When that didn't work, I tried to hate him. He had betrayed the S.T.A.R.S. and lured them into a trap, he was working for the company that had created that zombie virus, and he was jointly responsible for the deaths of many people. I had every reason to hate this man. But that didn't work either.

"You should reconsider my offer, you really should," he said while Rebecca was still lying unconscious on the floor, not moving. "Just think about what you and I could achieve together!"

"No thanks, Wesker, count me out."

And then he suddenly hit me. I was caught off-guard and overwhelmed. I landed on my back on the cold floor and before I could even think of sitting up again, he was already sitting on me, with his legs spread so his knee pushed my arms down while he was aiming the pistol at my face. He showed me a wide grin, then he pulled the trigger, I cringed – but apart from the clicking of an empty clip, there was nothing to hear. Wesker's grin became even wider and he threw the pistol away.

"I would never put a bullet into your pretty face! What do you think of me?" he said, amused, wagging his finger at me.

Since Rebecca and I had entered the laboratory I hadn't seen him do anything with his gun. He must have planned this. It had been loaded with only one bullet right from the beginning so he could get Rebecca out of the way before turning to me. Now he seemed to have what he wanted, and I had a pretty good idea of what that was.

But then something happened that I didn't expect. Wesker took his sunglasses off. He had blue eyes, like me, only a few shades brighter. I became even more puzzled when he suddenly put the glasses on my nose.

"Suits you." He bent down like to take a closer look at the new accessory on my face, but kissed me instead. I wanted to fight, to push him away with my hands, but his knees were still preventing me from moving my arms, I couldn't do anything with my feet in that position, and when I turned my head to the side, he would take my face in both hands and hold it. So I couldn't do anything but lie still and wait for it to stop.

It didn't stop too soon, though, and at the bottom of my heart I didn't even want it to. The kiss felt exactly like back then in the cell, the same passion, the same fire behind it... I closed my eyes and stopped fighting, physically as well as mentally. Wesker's tongue was playing with mine, tickling me.

I was neither tired nor drunk nor in another state that would possibly make me mentally incompetent. I could be absolutely sure that this was happening. Wesker, that asshole, that hypocritical traitor we owed this whole situation, sitting on me, kissing me... and me enjoying it.

Then he brought his lips to my ear and whispered: "You like this, don't you? You could have this every day, you know. Won't you think about my offer once again?"

"No, I... hate you!" I replied while he tenderly bit my earlobe and then tickled my neck with his tongue. I got goose bumps. Only now did I realize that his knees were no longer sitting on my arms, and if I had wanted I could have resisted. But there was something about Wesker that made it impossible for me nevertheless.

His hands opened the fastener of my S.T.A.R.S. vest. There was nothing beneath it except for the white T-shirt which had turned gray in some places due to the exertions. Wesker put his hands under it and slowly pushed it up, kissing every free inch of my upper body with a tenderness I hadn't considered him capable of. I twitched when his tongue reached my bellybutton – it had always been a sensitive zone – and continued to make its way up to the chest.

Had he undressed me all by himself? Had I helped him? I only remember that shortly thereafter, my T-shirt was lying on the floor next to my vest and Wesker was handling the belt of my pants. Everything he did, he did it slowly. He didn't seem to be in a hurry.

When the pants were open, I felt freed from a burden I hadn't even noticed until that very moment. Between Wesker and me, a hill had risen, the same color as my underpants, and the top of the hill was slightly wet, like a volcano that had erupted too soon.


	4. Back from the dead

**~ 4 ~ Back from the dead**

"I see you have quite some stormy affairs!" Claire shouts to me from downstairs and for one brief moment I have to fight the unrealistic fear that she might have read my thoughts. That probably won't be it, but I still don't know how much time has passed since I went up the stairs and got lost in my thoughts again, so I hurry to put something on.

"What do you mean?" I answer innocently to not raise suspicion.

"I'm just reading your horoscope," Claire says. "There's quite some interesting stuff, would you like to hear it?"

"No thanks. I don't believe in nonsense like that."

I get ready as fast as possible in front of the mirror and look at what has become of me. The auburn hair and the blue eyes still look exactly like in the past, I've only become older, my body broader, and the three-day-beard a habit.

On the chair in front of my desk there's still my old green S.T.A.R.S. vest. Since I've started with the strength training and building up my muscles, it has become too small for me, and by now it's also haunted by many more negative memories than any other object in this room – apart from the specs case on the desk, perhaps. The last time I wore it was on Rockfort Island. That was roughly half a year after the incident in the Arklay Mountains.

The truth was eventually revealed, even though only Jill, I, and the few other survivors of the incident were willing to believe it. As to Wesker, however, only I knew the _whole_ truth concerning his plans and my involvement in these. If I had reacted differently, I could have become Wesker's partner. But judging by _how_ I reacted, I only became his "partner" for those few, quickly passed, yet unforgettable minutes in the least romantic place I could have imagined for it: on the cold floor of a lab that was used by scientists to carry out experiments, under the eyes of the "tyrant" in its giant specimen jar, next to the unconscious Rebecca who was still not moving.

He teased me until I couldn't help anymore but take him, fast, rough and without any aids that could have made it more comfortable for him, while I entered him and pushed my manhood deeper into him with every thrust. He still couldn't get enough of it, and only when we were through all positions I knew by that time, and I was lying on the floor breathing heavily, even more exhausted than before, he seemed to be satisfied. Not looking tired at all, he calmly put his clothes back on, his sunglasses as well, and said: "Chris, I have something to show you." As if nothing had happened between the two of us. As always after we had gotten close.

What he wanted to show me was the "tyrant", a big humanoid creature behind thick glass which was supposed to be the ultimate biological weapon at that time. But the glass wasn't thick enough. The tyrant came to life, broke the walls of his prison with his huge claws and, with the same move, impaled Wesker who didn't have a chance of running away in time. Or so I assumed. Wesker was declared dead, but no one wanted to listen to the truth about him, just like no one wanted to hear the truth about Umbrella. Jill, Barry, Rebecca and I were soon made outlaws, they called us liars and conspiracy theorists, the news papers reported and the citizens of Raccoon City pointed their fingers at us. But what else was there to expect from a town that was more or less controlled by Umbrella.

While Barry, who had been given a raw deal by Wesker in the Arklay Mountains, only wanted to lead a peaceful life with his wife and two girls, Rebecca left the town and Jill no longer knew what else to do, I was unable and unwilling to accept that. I stubbornly kept on investigating, looking for further clues, digging in the dirt until I found some. There was an Umbrella facility in Paris, their headquarters so to speak, and that became my next goal. My sister was a nineteen-year-old university student back then, so I didn't tell her anything about my plans to not worry her. And that was one of my bigger mistakes.

Claire felt uneasy for not hearing from me for a long time and came to Raccoon City only a few weeks after my departure. The town had turned into a living hell by then. No one had wanted to believe me and the others, so Umbrella continued to conduct their shady experiments until something went wrong once again, and this time not only a few unlucky individuals inside or near the Spencer Estate got infected by the viruses, but almost the entire population of Raccoon City.

I should have called and lied to Claire, but I preferred to leave her in the dark about my plans, causing my worst, but seemingly unfounded fear to become reality: My little sister got into mortal danger. With the assistance of Leon Kennedy, a rookie police officer who should have taken up his post at the RPD that day, she managed to escape the horror and even save someone: Sherry Birkin, the twelve-year-old daughter of the two scientists who had created a new threat called G-virus.

But Claire continued to look for me and eventually followed me to Europe, where she was caught during an attack on Umbrella's headquarters in Paris and brought to Rockfort Island. A terrible island you usually don't escape from. Leon somehow found out about it and informed me so I could set out to look for Claire at once.

However, what I found was something else, or rather _someone_ else. He ambushed me in a laboratory that didn't differ from the one in the Arklay Mountains in terms of looks and purpose, and I, being convinced that I had already experienced the most unbelievable occurrences and biggest surprises, stood there with my mouth wide open when all of a sudden Wesker was there in front of me, alive like before his alleged death at the hands of the tyrant. Perhaps even a bit more alive than before. His "death", I learned, had been just another part of the great plan in order to have the tyrant's claws infect him with a virus, turning him into what he was that day: A person with orange glowing eyes and superpowers. He still looked exactly like he had a few months earlier, he was even wearing the same clothes. It was like a déjà vu in that respect, and yet something was different: He was much faster and stronger than before, which he made me feel soon enough.

He still couldn't read minds, though, and since he didn't know about Claire, he assumed I had come just to foil his plans, whatever they were. At first he was standing quite some meters away from me, but just the blink of an eye later he was right in front of me, grabbed me by the neck, lifted me up and pressed me against the wall which he reached so quickly it would have looked like teleportation to a bystander. I tried to fight him, to free myself from his grip, but he was just too strong.

"You arrogant little wannabe superhero! You think you can always be there to save the world, don't you?" he scoffed. "But now you're at my mercy. I can do with you whatever I want. Not much has changed since our time with the S.T.A.R.S., right? No matter what you think of yourself, you're still my subordinate, following my orders."

Now I was the one to scoff. Wesker's hand suffocated my voice, but I still managed to say: "You might have lost your humanity, but not your humor, it seems. When I think about how you had me I fill your every hole a few months ago... and you couldn't even get enough! So, who is whose subordinate here?"

I laughed out loud. Under normal circumstances I wouldn't have brought that up in a situation like this, but I just couldn't help it. Only the pain in my stomach when Wesker thrust his elbow into it silenced me again.

"Better watch your tongue before I rip it out!" With these words he violently threw me to the ground, but not violently enough for me to pass out. I wanted to use the opportunity to get back on my feet and recover my pistol which had been knocked out of my hand by Wesker's unexpectedly quick attack, but I didn't even get on my knees when he was already by my side, lifting me up by the T-shirt under my vest, only to throw me back to the floor again, this time near the wall.

"Is that all you can do?" I asked with the most cheerful tone I could manage, given the pain I was already suffering.

Wesker appeared behind me, lifted me up by a piece of my clothing once again, pushed me towards an empty desk and said with a cold, calm voice: "I will kill you, Chris. You can only be on my side or against me, there's no other option, and since you didn't want to become my partner, I must assume, unfortunately, that you will continue to get on my nerves for the rest of my life. Or, more precisely, of _your_ life. But before that, I will show you who's the boss among us."

The next thing I remember is pain. Wesker thrust me against the desk, forcing me to bend over, pulled down my pants and penetrated me so hard I thought my backside would be torn apart. The last time we'd met he had assume the passive role, but his new powers seemed to have changed his preferences as well.

That's one of the many things that have changed over time. Back then it still hurt. When Wesker was done with me, he kicked my legs aside, throwing me to the ground. I felt a warm liquid run down my thigh, not knowing if it was my blood or his sperm. When I looked up to him, he was just buttoning up his pants.

"And once again you're at my feet. Good boy."

But he didn't get round to killing me. He had wasted too much time raping me and now he had to move on to do whatever he had come to that island to do, while I got dressed in a hurry to continue my search for Claire. Walking now caused me some problems.

I didn't believe him, though, that he wanted to kill me. Maybe his claim to be out of time was just an excuse. But I was out of time myself, I couldn't waste it thinking about whether I was just deluded or not. I had to find Claire. She was more important than any kind of feeling I could or could not have for Wesker.

This meeting with Wesker remained the last one for a very long time. I didn't hear anything from him for years. But my life changed. My wish to protect the world from bioterrorism became an obsession in the course of time. For this reason Jill and I, along with nine other experienced fighters for the same cause, founded a new organization: the BSAA, short for Bioterrorism Security Assessment Alliance, where I still work today. Or at least so it _should_ be...


	5. Tender violence

**~ 5 ~ Tender violence**

Nowadays, the S.T.A.R.S. vest is nothing more but a memory, an heirloom the person I once was has left for me. Even if I'd still fit in, I couldn't wear it in my free time anyway. During most of my field operations at my new job I wear a stretch shirt with an imprinted BSAA emblem that fortunately adapts itself to my measurements, no matter how much mass I take on or lose.

Should I put on that shirt? Piers will arrive soon, he wants to work for the BSAA too... so why not. I quickly put it on and go down to Claire who was cleared up the table by now and is sitting in front of it with a magazine. When she sees me, she smiles.

"The BSAA uniform... nice. Are you a bit more optimistic now? At least it would fit what it says in your horoscope." She turns her attention back to the magazine.

"Let's see..." I sit down by her side. "What does it say there about you?"

She looks up again, wrinkling her forehead. Does she wonder why I'm interested in her horoscope hocus-pocus all of a sudden? But there, in her eyes that are quite similar to mine, only a little more gray, there's something else, like a mischievous smile her lips are trying to suppress.

"Come on, spit it out!" I'm curious now. "Does it say that Leon is going to propose to you?"

Now she laughs. A happy hearty laugh that I haven't seen on her face for weeks... maybe because of the depressive mood radiating from me... But in any case, there are some moments when she's happy without me causing her to laugh. Namely, when Leon visits. The nightmare called Raccoon City he survived along with Claire has brought them closer to each other – maybe a little _too_ close for them to still pass as friends.

None of them admits it. I've never seen them kiss, they don't even _touch_ each other in my presence, which I find kind of cute. As if Claire was afraid that the smallest touch could give me some kind of "big brother complex" and Leon some bruises... but it's not extreme like that. I do hate it when someone gets too close to Claire, but only when that someone is not supposed to. Leon seems like a decent guy to me, and the looks he and my sister exchange speak volumes, even without physical contact.

The first time I noticed it was even before I got to know this Leon in person. Claire asked me if it was normal to develop specific feelings for someone you've gone through hell with, and if there's anything similar between Jill and me after all those years. So I put two and two together. Of course she was referring to herself and Leon.

It's something different with Jill and me, though. We've been partners and good friends for years, or even close confidants. But there never was anything romantic or even purely sexual between the two of us, at least not from my side. After those various Umbrella incidents we were both too busy with our work to even think of something like that, even though I won't completely exclude the possibility that something could have been there if the events in the Arklay Mountains had never happened.

After my encounter with Wesker – and I'm speaking of that special encounter in the lab – I lost that kind of interest in women anyway. In general, I remember only one real relationship I ever had, but with a man. He was a secret agent for the US government and partly responsible for Claire, Leon and Sherry Birkin getting out of Raccoon City in one piece.

For a long time, I only knew him as "Dee-Ay"; that was his codename at the secret service. I don't remember how I got to know him. One morning after a wild night out I was just lying next to him, too bothered with my hangover to have an idea of how I – or rather, how _he_ – had gotten into my bed. It took me two years to find out two things: First, that I obviously wasn't made for solid relationships, and second, that my heart, whether I wanted to accept it or not, beat for only one person whose name, whose whole being I would just like to forget.

In all that time I was determined to deal with matters of international security, there were moments when I wished nothing more than to put an end to his and other power-mad guys' activities once and for all. But what could I do? For years, there was only one thing Jill and I could be sure about – that he was still alive, but we did not know where he was and what he was doing... or with whom.

Yet another question that bothered me more than I liked to admit to myself, it haunted me in my sleepless nights and didn't leave me alone: Was Wesker still thinking about me once in a while? Or had he found someone else, a new victim and object of desire at the same time, whom he offered, just while I was pondering over it, a place by his side? And in case they were together, what were they doing? Were they planning to take over the world, lying in his bed side by side and telling each other old stories? I didn't know which one of those images bothered me the most.

It was Rebecca Chambers who helped me to find him eventually. After the Raccoon City disaster she had quit her job as police medic and dedicated herself to the research of curing serums, although she sometimes considered joining the BSAA. She always kept her eyes and ears open and got in touch with me to tell me about a hint at Wesker's potential whereabouts approximately three years ago. How she herself came by that hint is another story. But Jill and I had to follow it up, and so we did.

We were led to a remote mansion resembling the Spencer Estate in the Arklay Forest in more than one way. That was where Oswell E. Spencer lived, one of the founders of Umbrella and proprietor of the Spencer Estate before its destruction, in person. But when we finally found the monster in a big library, it was already too late to demand answers from him. Wesker, who was connected to Spencer in his own complicated way, was expecting us next to his bleeding body when we arrived.

During the first few seconds I only had eyes for Wesker and not for the brutal mess he had caused. It had been ages since I'd seen him the last time, and he'd changed, become older, if only a bit. The sight of his posture, his demonic grin and the eternal sunglasses made me wallow in nostalgic memories, summoning feelings in me I didn't want Jill to notice. So I shot him the angriest look I could manage in that situation, raised my pistol and aimed at him. We knew he was a terrorist by now and up to something, and that was the only thing that counted... That, or something like that, was what I told myself.

It happened fast. Wesker hadn't forgotten over the years to use his superhuman abilities. He was by our side before one of us could shoot, hitting Jill in a way that would have knocked out a bull. She flew through the air, losing her gun, crashed into a shelf and fell down. The shelf spat out books, burying her underneath.

Next, Wesker grabbed me by the neck and raised his fist as if he wanted to hit me, but stopped in the middle of the movement and started to grin. It wasn't the same grin he had greeted us with.

"Long time no see, Chris. _Very_ long time," he breathed into my ear, giving me the shivers in the neck area. He forced me to drop my pistol with a skilled grip around my wrist. Then he pushed me away, just a few steps, and looked at me from top to bottom. I could see his lustful gaze even through the darkness of his sunglasses. "You have gained some weight. In a good way, though."

That was right. I had started my intense strength training years ago in order to prepare myself for the inevitable next encounter with him, to avoid facing him as weak and helpless as I had the last time on Rockfort Island.

And yet I did it again. I'd lost my pistol, and the way he looked at me almost made me even weaker. Was it my imagination or was there a subtle smile on his face, well hidden under his usual poker face that only allowed a grin once in a while? I had never seen him smile like that, not even when he had still been human. He seemed happy to see me again, as if he'd missed me sorely.

"Why don't you let me see your new body?" He made a step in my direction and reached out his hand as if he wanted to touch me, but I slapped it away and jumped back. Nervous, I looked at Jill. I didn't know what scared me more; that she might be unconscious and severely wounded, or that she was wide awake, seeing the way Wesker approached me. She would think of me as a traitor in the end. Whatever happened, I couldn't allow him to seduce me. Not again.

"Come on, stop those games. I know you've missed me too! So don't make such a fuss. Destiny will always bring us together again until you realize you can't run from me. You belong to me!"

While he was standing there, so sure of himself that he didn't even consider I might resist him, I bent over as fast as I could to get my pistol. I aimed it at Wesker before he could say another word. I had not forgotten his superhuman speed and I thought he might be fast enough to dodge bullets, but my reaction speed had increased as well over the years, so I considered myself able to shoot and dodge in time as soon as I noticed the slightest hint of a movement of his. But he stayed there calmly, not impressed by how I'd managed to recover my gun without him interfering, and that unsettled me. I wondered if he had allowed it on purpose.

"What are you up to? Why are you here?" I asked, anxious to control myself while my eyes twitched back and forth between the dead old man on the floor and his murderer. I really wanted to know. It was the reason why Jill and I had come.

I looked to Jill for a second when I thought of her, just to check if she was okay. I believed to see a little movement of her hand that was sticking out of the little pile of books, but before I could see more, Wesker took advantage of that little moment of inattention, grabbed me by a piece of my clothes and... moved with me.

There's no better way to describe it because I don't know if he was running, jumping or actually teleporting, only that within a split second we were suddenly on the other side of the spacious library and he was pulling me over the table there. Using only one hand, he pushed me over the edge and I landed on the floor between the long table and the big floor-to-ceiling window allowing pale moonlight to enter the dark room, providing a spooky atmosphere. Today I think the spare lighting was one of the reasons for Jill's reaction to what happened next.

I lost the pistol again, this time I lost sight of it as well. When I tried to get up, Wesker was suddenly standing in front of me, his crotch at the same height as my face, and said: "How nice that we finally get to the point."

Of course I knew what "the point" was. I looked at what I could see of Jill again, remembering the episode in the lab beneath the other Spencer Estate and wondered if it was my destiny to have sex with Wesker while my unconscious partner was lying somewhere close by. And he himself had even used that same word, "destiny", less than a minute ago... Coincidence?

Wesker's abnormal speed was not restricted to his movement from one place to another. Within less than a second he had lowered his pants – wearing nothing beneath –, pulled on my hair and forced me to put my head back, then he put... no, he downright _rammed_ his manhood into my open mouth. When the tip of his glans bumped against my uvula, the gag reflex shook me so hard I thought I had to throw up.

Despite all the pain Wesker had caused to my backside on Rockfort Island, I'd never expected it to be that _big_. This time it was less painful than simply uncomfortable. That one time in the past when Wesker had assumed the active part, he had only entered through the backdoor, not through the chimney. Now he acted like a real chimney sweeper who thrust his broom in again and again until he apparently lost interest in it and he let go of me.

"Don't be so lazy, Chris, play along!" he said when my upper body fell over and I choked on the floor. I was glad it was over, and the same time I felt ashamed for not being able to deny that not everything was completely uncomfortable... There was something special about Wesker's kind of cruelty, at least with me. He didn't really want to hurt me. This evening, it was rather me who was willing to hurt _him_.

That was the moment when Jill moved. I saw her shaking off the books, getting up and looking in horror, first to me, then to Wesker. Since the long table was standing between us, she probably only saw the upper half of his body which wasn't bare... and me, coughing, lying on the floor to Wesker's feet... then that spare lighting... I know what she was thinking at this instant.

"No!" she screamed and started to run, past the table and directly up to Wesker of whom she thought he was trying to kill me. Although he was unbelievably fast, he didn't get out of her way. Was he really taken by surprise or did he let it happen on purpose?

I will never be able to ask him about it. Jill jumped at him, breaking through the big window with him. I jumped on my feet, startled, crossed the small distance between me and the window with a big step and only caught a brief glimpse at the two of them falling down the cliff on this side of the house before the darkness swallowed them, taking away from me my long-term partner as well as my... whatever Wesker was for me at that time.


	6. Source of the depression

**~ 6 ~ Source of the depression**

"You shouldn't ask too much of yourself for the time being, because everyone knows that pride comes before a fall." Claire frowns as she skims her own horoscope. She suddenly seems distracted and thoughtful, but just for a second, then she snaps out of it. That's my sister – she has herself under perfect control. But I've been causing her enough trouble during the last weeks to recognize the sorrow in her eyes when I see it, even if it's only there for a second.

"What's wrong?" I ask. For once it's her who causes me to worry, not the other way around. "Are you taking what it says there so seriously? And if yes..." I can feel a grin spreading on my face. "What crime have you committed to look so worried? Didn't you tell Leon you're pregnant?"

Her head moves too sudden, her eyes that weren't looking at anything in particular before now stare at me, widening. I can't hold it back anymore and start laughing... and so does she.

"Silly fool! I'm not pregnant with Leon's child!"

"Then whose child is it?"

She continues laughing for a minute after using the word "pregnant", then looks away. And there it is again – that worried look in her gray-blue eyes. Something is wrong and she won't tell me whether or not it has anything to do with that silly horoscope. I know her since she's on this world; in some respects she's just as stubborn as I am.

"You would tell me if there was something, right?" I ask nevertheless, just to make sure.

"It's... nothing," she insists. "I just thought..."

The doorbell rings. Claire's face relaxes in relief. "It must be Piers! Well... I just thought there was nothing here we could offer him," she says briefly before getting up to rush to the door. She only stops in front of the mirror to check on her hair and fixes her blouse. There was a time when she had better excuses for not having to talk to me about something.

But now is not the time to confront her about it. She opens the front door and smiles at the guest who just saved her from this precarious situation. But sooner or later I'll find out what she's keeping from me. If there's something worrying her – and if it's not me for once –, I have to know about it.

Piers Nivans still looks the same as the last time I saw him. His light brown hair is pointing upwards, he's looking at Claire with his dark green eyes (or are they brown?) and the full lips form a smile when he greets her. You could think there was something going on between the two of them... But Claire has Leon, and Piers has... I don't know if he has anyone.

I don't know anything at all about him, actually, except that he seems to have a preference for scarves and other neckpieces since he was wearing one at Claire's birthday party, and now again. On the one hand, it reminds me a little of my ex-boyfriend Dee-Ay who used to wear a scarf as a lucky charm too on his missions. On the other hand, it makes me think of Wesker whose trademark also used to be an accessory: his sunglasses.

Strange that looking at Piers makes me think of those two of all people...

He turns his gaze in my direction and his smile freezes, just like his movement. I'm self-conscious now. But only for a second, then he starts moving again and comes at me. Must have been my imagination again.

"We already know each other a little bit," he says, shaking my hand.

"Yeah, briefly. From the party," I reply. "Claire says you're interested in the BSAA?"

"Exactly." Just a short word, not even a sentence. But when I look into Piers's eyes, who is only a little shorter than me, it feels like he had said a lot more. Or at least he had wanted to.

"Why don't you go in already?" Claire suggests, and I lead the way, followed by our guest.

In the meantime it has become too dark to rely on natural light from outside, so the floor lamp in the corner is bathing the living room in a soft, subdued orange light. I always tell Claire that all that's missing here is a bar and the whole room would look like a comfy pub at night, but she likes it the way it is.

We sit down on both sides of a small coffee table. I leave the armchair I usually sit on to Piers and place myself on the sofa diagonally opposite. At first we're both silent while Claire is doing whatever she thinks she must in the kitchen corner. I try not to catch his attention when I scrutinize him from top to bottom while it seems to me that he's doing the same, for whatever reason. I _have_ to check him out to decide whether or not he's suitable. I don't know his reason to do it.

"So..." I say eventually to cut through the embarrassing silence. "Do you have any experience so far? With army life, that is. Claire says you used to be with the police..."

"Yes, but only for a short time. I was with the army before and at the moment I don't have a job, if you will," Piers explains briefly and succinctly.

That makes me suspicious. Does he only want to join the BSAA because he doesn't have anything better to do at the moment? "But you know that what I do is more than just a way to kill time, right?"

Now he laughs. "Of course! That I don't have a job at the moment is not the reason, or at least not the only reason for my being here. There's also a couple of... personal matters."

Before I can ask him what he means by "personal matters", he continues: "But that's not so important as long as I'm fit for the job, right?"

And he's right about that. If he was keen on telling me about his personal reasons, he probably would do so. And as much as I'm interested in them, I won't ask him about it. It doesn't really matter what he wants as long as he's up to the job. And I probably wouldn't just tell him about my strange relationship with Wesker either...

But it's strange anyway. This isn't the usual way applications like this go off, and I'm not the one to decide who gets hired. But Piers is so excited, and Claire wants me to get to know him so bad, so I'll just do the two of them the favor.

Speaking of the devil...

"So, to make this a little more comfortable..." Claire puts everything you need to drink coffee on the table, including a plate full of cookies. "I know you prefer the high-proof stuff at the moment, dear brother, but I think you should have your head on straight when you make a decision."

She says it: "when you make a decision". It's not my decision! All I can do is put in a word for him. Either she doesn't know that or she's hiding something from me. Anyway, she winks at me and goes back into the kitchen. I realize there's only two cups on the tray she brought.

"Hey, what about you?" I ask nervously. "You're not staying with us?"

"I still want to finish this novel today, but I'm there if you need me." With these words and a pile of imprinted paper that doesn't look big enough to take much time reading, she disappears into her room. I catch a glimpse on the first page of the short story and manage to read the title: "Brokeback Mountain" by Annie Proulx.

Back to Piers. While we're talking, I scrutinize him once again. Since I can't have him go through any fitness tests at the moment, I try to rely on my gut feeling for the time being. And on what I see. He's tall, almost as tall as me, and slender, but I'm sure there's some muscles underneath the casual clothes. Physical strength and above-average capacity are good qualities for a BSAA agent. Considering everything we have to endure in the field, it's better to have too much of both than too little.

All in all, Piers Nivans still reminds me of myself when I was about his age. The only thing that doesn't really fit here is his hands; big, but soft like those of a woman. I can hardly imagine him using a heavy gun with those before. Not even Claire has soft hands like this. Maybe I should ask him what kind of hand cream he uses.

"Well, now I've told you some things about me," he says after a funny anecdote that made both of us laugh. "Why don't you tell me something about yourself?"

I raise an eyebrow. "About myself?"

"Yes. You know, your time with the BSAA so far. How did you get round to it? Claire says you're one of the founding members, and of course I've already caught up on it, but you can't look up the field experience of real BSAA agents anywhere on the internet." Piers is downright beaming. Nothing of what he's heard about the BSAA so far seems to put him off. I hear that some people are just like this; they know when they've found their purpose in life.

Anyway, I feel relieved. For some reason or another I was afraid at first that he'd want me to tell him about Wesker. No idea why that's always the first thing that comes to my mind when someone asks me to tell them "something about myself". Maybe because it's a part of me, and an important part of my life, even though I'm not often willing to admit it. Whenever I'm supposed to speak of my past, especially of the professional part of it, I simply can't get around mentioning Wesker.

I tell Piers what he wants to know, not mentioning my life before the BSAA, that's none of his business, but trying to be as precise as I can about everything since the foundation. The coffee pot soon becomes empty, and it's getting late. Of course Albert Wesker makes an appearance or two in the story, but since I don't know how Piers would react if I told him the truth about everything that happened between the two of us, I confine myself to the bare essentials, leaving out the personal details. Until after all I reach the last episode of my life so far, the mission in Africa...

I had a new partner, Sheva Alomar, who was working for the West African branch of the BSAA, and she was assigned to me because she was familiar with the region. We were sent to a shanty town called Kijuju to stop a trade with biological weapons on the black market. Jill had been declared dead after the incident in the second Spencer Estate although no body had been found after three months of search; a loss I was still struggling to cope with, and I hadn't seen Wesker ever since. I couldn't know whether or not he was dead since he had survived a couple of things in the past that a normal person couldn't have survived... But I would find out soon.

The guy we were chasing escaped us several times, but we soon learned that none other then Albert Wesker was really behind all of it. And he was not the only one who was still alive – Jill was with him. He kept her under control with a chemical that was administered to her at regular intervals through a device on her chest, and could do with her whatever he pleased. The development of biological weapons had gone that far already.

Sheva and I managed to free Jill of the influence of the chemical, but we didn't have time to celebrate our reunion appropriately. Wesker had actually conceived the weird plan to spread a new virus called Uroboros around the globe to infect everyone with it, have them mutate and become their new god, or something like that... He had lost his mind, and I'd finally lost my feelings for him... or so I thought.

"You might not believe me the next one... My God, it's so crazy I wouldn't believe it myself if I hadn't been part of it!" I tell Piers with a fake smile. "The big showdown between Wesker, me, and Sheva happened in an active volcano shortly before its eruption."

"Wow! Sounds like an action movie!" Piers says, but I can tell by looking at him that he believes every single word. He's simply intrigued like a little boy who is told by his father what he was up to in his wild youth.

Here as well, I leave out what doesn't seem appropriate to me. Not because Piers is not old enough to hear it, but because he wouldn't understand. Not even my sister knows about it and I'd like to keep those things as they are. I don't even understand myself. But the one thing that changed my life, the cause of my depressed mood that lasts till today, happened in that volcano.

Sheva was nowhere to be found for a few minutes, so Wesker and I were alone with the lava of the volcano that would soon erupt bubbling under our feet.

He was no longer the man from our last encounter, let alone the one I had originally gotten to know so many years ago. He was standing in front of me, his upper body exposed, just like his face – he looked different without the sunglasses –, and cursed me with a look I had never seen on him. I had ruined his ultimate plan, destroyed everything he had worked for for years, and there was nothing left of the calm, the usual coolness with which he usually approached things. He was really pissed off and not afraid to show me that.

"Why did it have to happen like this? Why did you always have to be such a stubborn self-opinionated bastard?" he asked me, threateningly waving around the debris of the plane we had crashed over the volcano in front of my nose. His right arm had mutated due to the Uroboros virus and become even stronger than it had already been before.

"You ask me? If your brain hadn't been eaten up by viruses and there was still some sanity left in it, we wouldn't be in this situation now!" I replied, aiming my pistol at him, ready to pull the trigger as soon as he started coming my way. "You've gone crazy! It's all because of your megalomania!"

"Every person dreams of power. You could have become my partner, Chris! I would have shared my power with you, with you and nobody else. But you were too proud, too blinded by your ridiculous ideals, and where did that lead? You will never reach your goal, the Earth will never be a save place! But with me, you could have reached a different goal, _we both_ could have reached it. Is it really better to chase a dream that will never come true, than to make space for a different dream which actually is in reach, although perhaps not everybody will morally support it? Think about it! Most of the people you're trying to protect every day wouldn't have declined what I offered you. If you're so much opposed to it, do you really have fun risking your life for people like that?"

I lowered my pistol a bit, but only a few inches. I was confused. Was there a little bit of desperation in Wesker's voice, a true emotion? But desperation was not the right word. It sounded more like... disappointment. He couldn't really be sad because I had decided against him, or could he?

"Why me?" I demanded to know. "Why didn't you move on, look for someone else after you must have realized you wouldn't be able to persuade me?"

A geyser erupted only a few meters from us, hurling lava and stone up in the air. I flinched, seeing a big rock flying in my direction as if it was aiming for my face – and then, before I could jump out of the way, plane debris crashed forcefully into the rock, pushing it away from me. At first my astonished look followed the piece of stone that now landed a few meters away in a lava pit, before my eyes moved on to Wesker. Had he just saved my life?

"Is it so easy for you?" he asked, his voice only a bit lower than before. "Could you just move on and find a new love after being ditched by the old one?"

My eyes widened, my pistol wasn't even aiming at him anymore, but at some empty space. I didn't know what to say, I was angry and confused at the same time. He was talking about love, not only like he was capable of such a feeling, but also like he had actually felt it for me.

That wasn't possible. Sexual desire, there had never been any more than that. And if yes, he had a very strange way to show love – inhuman, as he was.

But still – I took a step in his direction, lowering my pistol even further. I had to know more about it. "What are you talking about? I've always been nothing but a pain in your ass after our divergencies!"

"Above all, you've always been the dream of my sleepless nights. There was hardly a day I didn't think of you, _despite_ our divergencies," he admitted openly while I was keeping it to myself. For me, there had also been more than one reason to think of Wesker during those last years.

"You know, I _would_ have been ready to change something about the... let's say, radical nature of my actions. I'm not the monster you see in me, at least not always. I also have a soft side, but I was forced to find out that it's better to hide it as well as one can. I could already have killed you so often in order to avoid this situation, but it always prevented me from doing so. My soft side, and my hope that someday you might change, come to your senses. I never wanted anything but you."

There was silence for a moment. Not even the noise of the volcano, which wouldn't remain a peaceful place for long anymore, could break it. Wesker and I looked at each other and I wondered what had made him become the person who was now standing in front of me.

But then – a shot, loud enough to downright mangle the silence. I felt a quick brutal blow next to me when the bullet rushed past me, hit Wesker's chest and caused him to stagger.

"Albert!" I yelled, but it was too late. He lost his balance and I watched him fall like in slow-motion, how he fell backwards into the lava that not even a superhuman like him could ever escape. I imagined our eyes meeting, him staring at me while he was falling, willing to say something to me, one last, concluding thing... But he had disappeared before it could happen, and Sheva showed up behind me, her pistol raised, believing she had just saved my life like Jill must have believed back then at the Spencer Estate.

"Are you alright?" she asked, but the ground began to shake as if Wesker's death had enraged the volcano. A mighty quake had us fight for balance. Sheva dropped her pistol, that piece of metal which had only caused harm, and the ear-shattering noise of a propeller cutting through the air grew louder above our heads. I looked up to see a chopper come to save us. Jill was on board, throwing a rope ladder down to us that we climbed up. It seemed to be over, but then...

"Chriiiiiis!"

I cringed. The angry pained scream went through my whole body. Wesker was still alive. Fifteen meters below us he had raised his upper body out of the glowing lava. His arms had formed tentacles, apparently a side effect of one of the newest viruses he was carrying within. It seemed impossible, but they were actually long enough to grab our chopper and shake it violently. Every one of us was in danger to fall out through the open door at least once. Wesker didn't want to let me go.

"Chris, Sheva! Use those!" Jill shouted louder than the rattling of the propeller, handing us the two rocket launchers the chopper was equipped with.

"That's it for you, you son of a bitch!" Sheva cussed, aiming her weapon at Wesker who wouldn't let go of us voluntarily.

I hesitated, but Jill's piercing look as well as the immediate danger we were in urged me to act. I had to do it, otherwise he would have pulled us all into the lava.

"Suck on this, Wesker!" I screamed, firing my rocket a second later than Sheva fired hers, but it didn't miss its target.

Sheva's rocket reached Wesker first, breaking through his head and then the surface of the lava, causing a fountain. The blink of an eye later, my rocket hit his chest, ripping apart his body, his heart – and mine as well.


	7. Cushions and kisses

**~ 7 ~ Cushions and kisses**

"Are you okay?"

I avoid looking at Piers, because through my blurred vision I see the tears that have formed in my eyes. Wesker... I will never forget how he looked at me while he fell into the lava, neither what he said to me before Sheva's bullet hit him. What would have happened between the two of us if she hadn't interfered at that moment? I might have helped my former captain to come to his senses. Maybe he would have become good in the end, maybe he would be here now, with me...

Or maybe I'm lying to myself. However, I still can't believe that I fired a rocket into the man's chest, not five minutes after he confessed his love to me. Even until today, I don't know what to think of it, if I should believe him or not. Of course he might have lied to catch me by surprise, but then he could have allowed the rock to hit me instead of stopping it. Maybe it's just his way to love that a normal person doesn't understand without further ado. That stern, strange, brutal way... I'll never know.

Anyway, a part of me died with Wesker who had been accompanying me for more than a third of my life, and what he said to me made me is more thought-provoking for me than I would ever have admitted in front of him. It's true that the Earth will never be a safe place. It's a vicious circle: As soon as one threat has been disposed of, a new one raises from the darkest shadows of science, and that's actually nothing new to me, but still there was a time, a relatively _long_ time, when I believed that Wesker was the only threat to this world, and that everything would be fine once he was gone.

Now he is gone, I've survived him – and yet I don't feel better. Sometimes I honestly wonder if there's any point in continuing my struggle, or if I had better accepted some certain offers when they occurred to me instead of looking at them from a moral perspective...

"You're all pale! Shall I get you some water?" Piers asks, worried.

I shake my head and rub my eyes as if they ached while I'm actually wiping off the tears. "Everything's alright, don't worry. I'm just... tired, that's all. Would you mind continuing this conversation tomorrow? It's quite late anyway."

I don't remember what exactly I told him. Which ones of the sentences I constructed in my head actually came out aloud, how much Piers knows about me now. But I'm too exhausted to feel ashamed. Although I don't work for the time being, my day has been long, especially the evening. An evening full of memories of so many things that shouldn't have happened. I only want some rest.

When I get up, Piers has already gotten out of the armchair and is standing right in front of me to help me. He doesn't look like he wants to leave yet, and it's obvious that he has an important question. "Is there anything you can tell me so far? Is there a chance for you and me?"

I give his dark green eyes a puzzled look, raising one eyebrow. Did he just try to hit on me?

"Well, I mean, if you think I'm suitable for the BSAA." he adds, and I immediately feel silly. Of course! He wants to know if he has a chance to join the BSAA, nothing else. It seems to be very important to him, an interest that makes me like him more. But I guess he has no idea what will be in store for him if I say yes. It would be a shame if someday he ended up like me, sad and desperate, deprived of all hope that what we do will eventually pay off. If his enthusiasm and vitality should ever go down the drain, I don't want to be the one who did that to him...

"Listen..." I have to choose my words wisely, ignore what I was just thinking, to tell him exactly what has to be said in a situation like this, and which is actually true: That a simple conversation with me in itself is not enough to make a decision like that. I'll have to explain this to Claire too later.

"I see you are committed, but I can't promise you anything spontaneously. You must go through a couple of tests, a psychological profile of you must be created. It will be done by people that are professionals in their fields, I'm just a captain. But I take our conversation as... let's say, your official application."

I don't miss the flash of disappointment in his eyes as I walk past him to accompany him to the door.

"Never mind," he says suddenly. "You don't need to put it into pretty words like this. I know a rejection when I get it."

I turn around to him. "It's not a rejection!" But actually, it is. I don't want him to start working for the BSAA, in fact for the strangest reason one can probably have: Because I like him. And he should make something of his life rather than following the same path that I have. I'd never have based a professional decision on thoughts like this before Africa. But in the end, it's not my decision anyway.

As soon he walks through the door, I don't think I'll get in touch with him again, and it will be the best for him. I still need to think about what to tell Claire, though.

"Is it because of your trauma?" Piers asks then. "Are you afraid that something like that could happen to me as well?"

The guy can read minds. And now I know I won't be able to just put him off that easily without being impolite. "Alright, follow me." I say as I lead him up the stairs to my room that no one except Claire has entered since I'm here. At first he stays by the door, looking around, while I switch on the lamp next to my bed and tidy up some of the mess that makes me look like a layabout. I don't care about hiding that from Piers, though. Working for the BSAA, you're usually busy keeping order in the world outside your own four walls rather than inside.

When the room looks somewhat presentable, I finally ask him to come in and have him sit on the bed because the desk chair is full of clothes now, the S.T.A.R.S. vest lying on top.

"I want to show you something. And if you're still keen on joining the BSAA after that, I'll make sure myself that you'll be assigned to one of the units." I say, looking for a specific folder in the little file cabinet above the desk. Since my order phobia does not stop at my cabinets, it's not that easy, but I find it eventually. It's a folder that actually belongs to the records room of the BSAA, but I've made myself a copy of it for more than one reason.

I sit down on the bed next to Piers, placing the folder between us. It shows mutilated bodies of BSAA agents, brave men and women who were killed on duty by zombies or worse creatures. I can see him batting an eye, but Piers maintains his composure.

"That's not all." I turn a few pages. Next we see the mutations diverse viruses have caused to various bodies. "This..." I point at an old photo of a G-virus monster, pixelated, but scary nevertheless. A big shapeless chunk consisting only of eyes and teeth. "My sister met one of those in Raccoon City when she went there to look for me. It may sound unbelievable, but that used to be a human like you and me. The harm viruses like these can cause to a human body is not only incredibly disgusting, but also unpredictable, and once you're infected, there's as good as no hope left. Most mutations happen very quickly."

I turn the page once again to show Piers the effects of Wesker's Uroboros virus, when he suddenly says: "You want to get rid of me at all costs, don't you?"

I look into his eyes seriously and say: "A doctor must inform a patient about the risks before the operation. That's what I'm doing with you right now, just in a different context. If these pictures make you feel sick, Piers, then I don't want to see you in a field operation. It helps neither you nor your team-mates if you throw up at the sight of a mutation."

"That's not what I mean. I'm just wondering if you also do that with everyone else who applies for this job, if it's me, or if you're just in a bad mood because of your current situation. What must happen to make you happy again?"

"That has nothing to do with it."

"Oh yes, I think it does." Piers insists. "So: What would make you happy right now? Or rather, what could _I_ do to make you happy?"

"Are you trying to bribe me?" I ask warily.

"No, I'm only trying to find what Claire is always so enthusiastic about whenever she speaks of you. I admit that this is one of the reasons why I'm here tonight. I still want to join the BSAA, nothing has changed about that, but I'd hoped...« Piers pauses for a moment and looks away to blush for two seconds precisely, then he regains his composure and continues: "I'd hoped to be able to work with you."

Oh dear... Claire must speak highly of me when she tells others about me. I hold Piers's gaze for a few more seconds, then I snap the folder shut and put it aside.

"Stop mourning your past, Chris." he says – the first time he calls me by my name. I'm starting to wonder how much he actually knows about me and what Claire was thinking when she brought us together this evening. Am I starting to annoy her? I can't blame her. But does that mean she has to call for back-up to cheer me up? Because Piers seems to be trying exactly that.

Something else crosses my mind... where the hell is Claire? She cannot still be sitting in her room, reading that short story. She must have read through it three times by now. But before I can think about it, something white flies into my face. Despite all the training, my reflexes are not fast enough to repel it, and so it knocks me over on the mattress. I hear Piers laugh, and when he removes the pillow from my face, I even see it through a whirlwind of dancing white feathers.

At first I stay lying down, motionless and perplexed, but just one second later I have to spend all my energy on trying not to laugh hysterically. Chris Redfield, conqueror of monsters, viruses and their inventors, savior of many civilians and survivor of numerous outbreaks of zombie epidemics, is knocked out by a laughing soldier trainee with a pillow.

"You don't think you're getting away with this, do you?" I warn him, still trying hard to keep my facial muscles under control.

Piers puts a cunning smile on his face and shrugs. That's enough to reinforce my desire for revenge. I quickly pry the pillow out of his hands and bash him up with it, realizing that there's no more sense in trying to pull myself together. He huddles up on the bed, laughing into his elbow in which he hides his face while I can't stop beating him with the pillow. Later he starts putting up resistance, grabs the second pillow and fights back. My bed turns into a real battlefield, but the pleasant difference is that this time white feathers are flying through the air instead of lead, blood and intestines.

But I'm stronger. My pillow hits his forcefully and hurls it across the room. It bumps into the desk chair, knocking it over, the pile of clothes explodes like a bomb and scatters all over the floor.

Piers is lying diagonally across the bed now. He lost his scarf during the pillow fight; it must be somewhere under the blanket. I lie down next to him, still laughing and wiping the tears off my face. I feel like a little child again, something I haven't felt for a very long time, but I also don't remember the last time I had so much fun. I even feel warm now.

"You're giving up?" I ask, poking Piers's side with my elbow.

"Hm..." He seems to consider it. "Keep dreaming!"

Piers is fast, once again faster than my reflexes, I'll give him that. I can't even react as quickly as he takes away my pillow, sits up and beats me with my own weapon. When I try to jump off the bed to get the other pillow, he shoves me back and sits on my legs to prevent me from getting up. Another blow with the pillow, then he raises it one last time, but doesn't hit me anymore. He drops it instead, smiling at me.

It's no longer the same impish grin like last time, and I get goose bumps; a feeling I'm pretty familiar with by now. An endless second passes, we're just looking at each other...

And then he bends over, still smiling, and kisses me.

* * *

**Yes, there you have it... I'm called Mrs Nivanfield for a reason.**


	8. Physical training

******This chapter will make it clear why the story is rated M. You have been warned.**

* * *

**~ 8 ~ Physical training**

Piers's sensual lips are like balm for my soul, let alone what they do to my body. I feel hot and cold at the same time – and I can't help responding to his kiss with reckless abandon. It's been ages since I did this the last time... Months? Years? Wesker was always after something other than kisses, and other than him, there's not many people I've kissed in my life.

The thought of Wesker still hurts, but I push it aside. Now is not the time for it. Piers is right; I must finally let go of the past, and he's good at helping me with it. But then, suddenly, he stops. I open my eyes to look at him, disappointed, asking what's wrong.

He doesn't answer, but picks up the pillow he dropped before and throws it against the door, slamming it shut and locking out any interruptions.

"I thought you'd changed your mind," I admit.

"But not five steps away from the goal!" Piers replies, and we pick up where we left off.

I don't look at the clock, but the last time I did, it was after eleven, and it should be almost midnight by now, if not later. I don't care. And for the first time in weeks the reason for me not caring about anything has nothing to do with Africa. We roll over on the bed, then I'm on top of him and let my feelings dictate my actions instead of thinking about them. I put both arms around his upper body and pull him up into an upright position before I take off his pullover, not ceasing to kiss him; his full lips, his cheeks, his neck.

His soft girl's hands rest on my chest at first, but then start moving down on both sides of my body to my belt, which they open while I get rid of my BSAA shirt, dropping it carelessly, and then my hands move underneath the white T-shirt Piers is still wearing.

"You have a beautiful body," he says in a low voice, dropping his gaze from my bare chest to my bellybutton as if he knew that this is a special zone of my body. But his physique is quite presentable too. He's not as broad as I am, rather slender, but muscular as I expected, and his abs are in no way inferior to mine.

He puts his hands on my shoulders and pushes me back, laying me on the back, and crawls on top of me on all fours. I get goose bumps again when he gently strokes over my neck with one finger while he bends over to caress my upper body with his lips, briefly sucking on my nipples and then moving further down in the direction of the bellybutton.

My belt is not open yet and Piers's hands continue to change that while his tongue at my bellybutton perfectly prepares me for what is to come. In any case, Piers knows what he's doing. And while he frees me from everything I'm wearing below the belt, I reach for the lamp next to the bed to switch it off. I like it better this way, only the light of the moon and the street lamps is shining from outside through the tilted skylight, directly on us. Normally I'm not the romantic kind of guy.

Piers's lips are not only suitable for kissing, as I discover when they tightly wrap around my glans. An lustful moan escapes my mouth uncontrolled when he starts sucking it, taking in a little more each time. Wesker didn't put as much effort into it when we did it for the first time in the laboratory, and I could never persuade Dee-Ay to even try that in the first place. Piers, on the other hand, is all but shy; his soft wet tongue makes me twitch every time it strokes the frenulum at irregular intervals. He obviously isn't doing this for the first time. I grab his hair, messing up his perfectly-fitting hairstyle, but let him do what he thinks is right.

He eventually comes to the conclusion that my member has hardened enough. I open my eyes when I no longer feel his lips, and he's sitting upright now, his chest shining faintly in the pale light. When he gets on his knees, I catch a glimpse of his genital area; his penis is not fully erect yet, but fairly big for his slender physique, and Piers doesn't seem to be a fan of pubic hair.

He moves forward to sit on my cock which immediately slides into his comfortably tight baby's bottom without effort. However, that bottom is too soft and relaxed to be virginal. Piers reaches out his hands, I take them, and then he starts riding me in a way I've never experienced before. I let out a startled scream at first, but get used to it within a few seconds. Soft was yesterday; now he's getting really wild, even wilder than he was during the pillow fight.

The bed frame creaks and squeaks under our fast movements while I try my best to keep my mouth shut, feeling that something is brewing in my abdomen. Claire's room is right beneath mine. It's enough if she hears the rumbling, she doesn't need to hear me as well, or she might assume that I'm in danger...

When I feel it coming, I start so squeeze Piers's hands so hard it almost hurts, and I can feel them getting wet. With my eyes closed, I throw my head back and open my mouth to a silent cry. At that moment the explosion occurs, strong enough to shake me thoroughly, and I erupt like volcano, pouring out a stream of hot lava into him. Piers moves slower now, but his grip remains tight, and I can see that his cock has drawn itself up to its full size by now.

Feeling a kind of satisfaction I haven't felt for ages, and determined to thank Piers decently, I free my right hand from his grip and take it to his boner. He's so ready I don't even have to work on him for long. Blinded by lust, he shouts something – I can swear I hear the word "captain" among others –, then he comes. The biggest part of his sperm lands on my chest, the rest on my face.

Exhausted and breathing heavily, he lets up on me – my abdomen feels cold now that he's not sitting on it anymore – and lies down next to me. Although he assumed the passive part in this game, he was amazingly active at it... the riding must have finished him off. I wipe the sperm off my face with my fingers, one drop at a time, then I lick it off, enjoying the stale, slightly salty taste while I imagine what it will be like next time, when we swap the roles.

What an unexpected turn of events for this evening. I don't know how I will think about it tomorrow, but tonight I only hope that there will be a next time.

"You all right, soldier?" I ask when I hear Piers's breathing going back to normal.

"Yes, Sir," he replies casually in a low voice, his eyes set on the stars that are visible through the skylight. I follow his gaze while my mood slowly returns to normal as well, but not too much. I'm not as depressive anymore as I was before – how should I be, after such an experience? – and I just hope it will remain like this for now.

"I think I owe you a favor," I tell Piers. "Because you took my mind off things. You have no idea how much you've helped me."

He turns onto his side so he can look at me, and I see the hopeful sparkle in his eyes despite the darkness. "And that means?"

"Well..." I can't help wondering if he did actually try to bribe me, and if that's also how he got his job at the police. Of course I do not really believe it, but it's amusing to think about. "You've proved to be in form, physically. So you've passed one of the tests necessary to join the BSAA."

The expression of his eyes changes and I'm not sure if I'm interpreting his next look right. He must know what is to come now, but is he really glad about it? Anyway, he replies: "Does that mean you'll give me a real chance and not try so hard to get rid of me anymore?"

I muss up his hair. "I never tried to get rid of you!"

"Yes, you did! And sometimes it's not even a bad thing to get rid of things... or rather, to let them go. You only need to be careful to let the _right_ things go. And keep the right things."

What Piers says makes sense. His words echo in my head and the more times I hear them, the more I realize he's right. Sometimes you have to make a decision. Perhaps I made the right one.

If I hadn't been ready to kill Wesker, I might now be responsible for the deaths of a whole lot of other people he would have killed otherwise, and certainly for the deaths of Jill and Sheva – if I was even alive myself to regret it. Wesker would never have stopped being a threat, with or without me by his side, with or without any feelings he may or may not have felt for me. And maybe Piers would have been one of his victims, possibly even Claire – I would never be able to forgive myself. Would my crazy, totally ungrounded infatuation, even if it was actually love, have been worth _that_?

Perhaps Wesker ended up being who he was because he never had someone like Claire. Or Jill, or anyone else he could confide in. Or is it my fault? I'll never know how serious he was when he more or less implied that I was the only person he ever loved. Maybe I could have tamed him... and maybe I just stop thinking about it now, or else I might get depressed again. He was a bad person after all. What did Piers say? Sometimes you have to let go, and I decide of what. Tomorrow I'll start letting go of Albert Wesker.

"Are you sleeping?" Piers suddenly asks. His talent to get me out of my thoughts with a random remark is definitely something he has in common with Claire.

"No," I answer.

"Do you have another wish?" he then asks with a grin.

It makes me chuckle. "Thanks, but I'm very tired. Do you want to stay here tonight?"

"Hm..." Piers hesitates. "Are you keen on explaining it to Claire?"

Now I'm the one who hesitates. "Hm."

I switch the light back on and we get dressed. Before Piers puts his pullover on, I bend down to get my S.T.A.R.S. vest which is lying on the floor in the midst of a mess of pillows, feathers, and clothes, and hold it out to him. "Do you want it? It can't get in anymore."

Piers smiles as he approaches to take a look at the vest. "S.T.A.R.S... Isn't that the elite unit you were with?"

"It _was_ the elite unit, yes. It doesn't exist anymore," I explain. "It's just a souvenir now... But if you like, you can have it."

Piers thankfully accepts my present and immediately puts on his new vest instead of his pullover. With that white T-shirt beneath, he really looks like I did way back. To me, the vest is a reminder of things I'd like to forget. To him, however, it's a gift he appreciates, so I don't think I should feel guilty for giving it to him.

I walk him to his car in front of the house.

"I'll call you," he promises. "I have Claire's number which, I guess, is yours too as long as you live here."

"It may not be for long anymore," I say. "After all these weeks it's about time to accept responsibility again. And who knows..." I look at the skylight of my room with an impish grin. "Maybe someone else will move into the guest room up there... if not directly into my sister's bedroom..."

Of course I'm thinking of Leon. But Piers doesn't ask, he just grins. I think he has his very own theories, just like me and probably everybody else who has ever seen the two of them together.

I say goodbye to Piers with one last long kiss.

"As I said, I'll call you. But you can call me too if anything comes up," he says before getting into his car and driving off. I wave at him until he's out of sight.

When I go back into the house, Claire is standing in the door frame of her room and looks at me, the short story from earlier still in her hand. I see she already put away the dishes in the living room.

"What's up?" I ask, feeling insecure.

"Oh, nothing... But I think your old vest suits Piers. Good night!" Without waiting for my reaction, she turns around and disappears into her room where she – or at least I hope so – has been staying all the time.

But if she saw Piers in my S.T.A.R.S. vest – then what else did she see?

I'll think about that tomorrow. For now I'll just go to bed, already knowing that I'll be thinking of _him_ all the time, perhaps even in my dreams. That's much more enjoyable than constantly racking one's brain about one's problems anyway.


	9. Sunrise

**~ 9 ~ Sunrise**

Breakfast somehow smells better than usual when I stand in the kitchen in my bathrobe the next morning, setting the table. It's pretty much a Sunday morning just like any other, but I didn't dream of Wesker today, and...

"Wow!" Claire's jaw falls open when she sees this. "Who are you and what have you done to my brother?"

No, she can't complain today. She never does it anyway, but still. The coffee is ready, the bread defrosted, the pancakes should be ready soon and the daily newspaper is lying by Claire's favorite place, open at the horoscope. It's usually her who arranges breakfast, but if I even get out of bed in the morning, I don't really care... Today is different. I've taken care of everything. Claire is already dressed, and that's all she'll need to worry about today.

"And..." She points at me unbelieving, or rather at what I'm wearing. "The bathrobe... Does that mean you actually started showering again?"

"Now you're exaggerating," I laugh, indicating her to sit down with a gesture.

She checks on the pancakes as she passes by, as if she was afraid I might let the last one burn, but I return to the stove right away to prevent that from happening.

"I wonder why you're up so early," she remarks, and she's right, considering that it's only a few minutes past nine. "It was a long night for you, wasn't it?"

"What do you mean?" I switch off the stove, put the pancake on the plate and spread it with marmalade.

"There was a rumbling sound coming from your room. What the hell did you and Piers do, if you don't mind my asking?" Claire sounds quite amused. So she did hear something...

"Um... Well..." I'm failing to offer a proper explanation. "Childish stuff. You... don't really want to know."

I think about everything I've done this morning right after getting up. First of all, I checked the bed for suspicious stains... but there were none. Then I cleared away the clothes, got rid of the loose feathers and the rest of the mess. Which means that even if Claire already was in my room today for whatever reason, she can't have found anything that...

"Well, I do want to know whether or not you got along. If it even made sense that I introduced him to you. After all it was my idea."

"Well, yes, we got along. We have..." The bright idea comes up not a moment too soon. "We had a pillow fight! Childish, I know. But I told you. Somehow we were up for it."

Claire laughs, choking on her coffee and burning her lips at the same time. But she keeps laughing while she cleans her mouth with a napkin. "Oh man! I would have loved to see that. Is that the BSAA's new acceptance progress?"

"No," I answer, chuckling at the thought of every BSAA applicant having to pass the pillow fight test before being appointed as an agent from now on.

Claire is already reading today's horoscope when I sit down at the table. "And, what kind of rubbish does it predict for me today?"

"Well, let's see..." Claire puts her cup down, her eyes moving further down. "An unexpected turn of events brings happiness to your life. You should go out a lot in the near future, you might find a new love in case you haven't found it yet."

"Yeah, just rubbish," I reply, shaking my head, but smiling. I'm wondering if that's really what it says there. "What about you?"

"Everything I wish will come true according to my ideas," Claire answers briefly without even looking at it. "So we both have a reason to be happy. A very good way to start one's day, don't you think?"

"If you believe in that kind of thing, certainly."

A mobile starts ringing in the entrance area. It's Claire's ring tone. "Oh, that has to be Leon!" She drops everything and hurries to her phone.

Now I reach for the daily newspaper to make sure she didn't just invent the part about the new love. She didn't – it's written there, in black and white. However, the predictions for her own sign aren't what she said. At least not exactly.

"And? Was it Leon?" I ask with a half-full mouth when she comes back. "But don't tell me he proposed to you on the phone, that would be so unromantic!"

Claire raises and eyebrow, leans onto the rest of her chair and looks straight into my eyes as she suggests: "Okay, let's make a deal. I'll admit what's going on between Leon and me if you admit what happened between you and Piers yesterday. And now don't start with the pillow fight again."

A half-chewed piece of a pancake sticks in my throat and I reach out for my glass, choking. Not because I really need it, but to buy time. "Well... But we really had a pillow fight!" I insist, since I'm not going to nonchalantly tell my sister at breakfast that her acquaintance blew up my cock and then sat down on it.

Claire wrinkles her forehead. "So that means a pillow fight has lately become the acceptance process in your anti-terrorist organization, well, we know about that already, and you get a positive answer in the form of a long, hot, passionate French kiss?"

I can feel my cheeks blush and try to hide behind my glass. So she has noticed how we said goodbye. Now I can't deny it anymore, I have to resort to damage control.

"Rubbish! Long and hot and and passionate... It was nothing but... a friendly... little peck!"

Claire laughs out loud, just like yesterday when I told the first joke about Leon's possible proposal, but this time the reason is not the same, and I don't like it. How stupid I was to kiss Piers right in front of the house where anyone could have watched!

"And since when does a little peck take so long?" she asks with a wink. "I swear you have been sticking together for about two minutes, if not longer."

I blush even more. "So long, really? I didn't notice," I answer truthfully. I really did not realize that our kiss lasted so long. It seemed so short to me.

"Well, if you're enjoying something, it never seems that long to you." I can see how amused Claire is, but not if she's making fun of or being happy with me. If only I _was_ happy... That's not so easy when you get involved in such a conversation with your sister one ordinary morning without any prior warning... especially when it's a topic you've never talked to her about before...

"Okay..." Given the circumstances, I decide to lay my cards on the table. "What else do you know?"

Finally she sits down – it makes me nervous when she just stands there, looking at me from above – and resumes her breakfast. "What I know? I know, for example, that there's a lot of stuff you'd rather keep from me although there's no reason to it." Her smile fades, her face is serious now. "Love can go strange ways. That means it's not your fault if the one you love doesn't deserve it. That happens occasionally."

Now I'm stunned. I don't think she's talking about Piers here. But how the hell can she know about Wesker? Of course she does know about his mere existence. I mentioned him once in a while, but never getting personal, and she says she even met him briefly on Rockfort Island. So she knows about the basics and that doesn't surprise me at all. But apart from myself and him there's no one who knew about our strange relationship, let alone someone who could have told her about it. If Piers actually gets the job anytime soon, he'll be the first one of my workmates she knows personally.

"How..." I begin, but she doesn't make me beg for an answer.

"Jill Valentine. Two weeks ago you left your notebook lying about, I found her contact details in it and wrote her an email. I just wanted to talk to her because I know you've been through a lot together, and I thought she might know more about your current condition... After all, she was in Africa too, and she told me."

"Wait a second! _What_ did she tell you?" I start to feel like everyone knows about me. Maybe even better than I do.

"That you and Wesker were close, despite everything. In those three years he kept her as his slave, she could overhear enough to hit on that idea. Then, in Africa, you hesitated to shoot him although he was about to kill you all... Jill thinks his death might be the reason for your condition."

When Claire notices the unhappy expression on my face, she quickly continues: "Please don't be mad at her because she told me. You know, by the time we were exchanging those emails, we were both very worried about you, and Jill was also happy to have someone to talk about it. But eventually she only confirmed what I'd already been thinking anyway. You talk in your sleep, Chris. At least sometimes. But when you talk, it's always about him. I heard it a few times by now."

I don't know what to say, so I just sit there in silence, gazing into space, chewing on my food that doesn't taste anymore. I'd rather have Claire look somewhere else. I don't know if I've ever been so ashamed in my whole life. Wesker threatens the world, and what do I do... Not only that I dream about him; I also do it in a way so that everyone picks up on it. It would have been strange already to tell Claire she will never have a sister-in-law to go shopping with – I would have managed that one way or another. But that it has to be him of all people... Claire's remark that love can go strange ways doesn't help here. I still feel ashamed, and I think I have every reason to.

"You know..." I say after a long break. "Ever since I'm here, living at your expense, you've never given me a lecture. Now would be the best time."

Yes, that's what I want. I want her to scold me. I deserve it.

"Then you should give me one too. Because I interfered in your love life," she admits guiltily, and I prick up my ears as she continues: "I thought if you get to know somebody... I mean, somebody very special in that respect... then you might feel better. So it came in handy that Piers was so much interested in the BSAA. I didn't know for sure whether or not he's into men, so he also didn't know that it was my plan to hook you up with each other, but... I had to try everything in my power to make you happy again. And it seems like it worked. The way you were beaming when you were preparing breakfast... I haven't seen you like that for ages, it was a rare sight even before Africa. And I wish you could just accept that I know it now and smile again. Like you did before."

She stops eating for a while and seems to wait anxiously for my answer, but I don't know what to say. It all seems pretty unreal to me at the moment; I'm still taken by surprise. But I can't say I'm mad at her, either. She's right after all; if she hadn't introduced Piers to me, I'd probably still be in a bad mood. It's just that strange thought that all the time she knew everything while I thought it was a secret.

"So? Will you invite him to your birthday?" she asks as if to change the subject when she realizes that I won't answer anytime soon. "It's not far off."

At least that's a question I can answer. "You bet! But please do me a favor: Don't tell Jill anything about it. At least not everything. The thing with Wesker... Well, please just keep it to yourself. Spare Jill the details."

Claire nods, and slowly the food starts tasting again. Despite everything it's a nice feeling to finally be able to talk openly to my sister. My only hope is that it won't be our sole topic in the future, but she seems to think about it the same way.

We finish breakfast talking about normal everyday stuff. Then we clear the table together and I go upstairs to my room which may not be my room anymore for long if I stick to my plan to move out.

I open the wardrobe and gather some clothes for the day. The times I used to spend the whole day in my pajamas or my bathrobe are finally over. As I start getting dressed, the specs case lying about on the desk catches my attention. I know what it is because I've had it for weeks and take a look inside every now and then. It's about time to change something about this habit.

I go to the desk, pick up the blue case and hold it in my hand for a while before opening it. Inside are Wesker's scratched black sunglasses that slid off his nose in the volcano. I took them with me without Sheva noticing after she had shot him into the lava. I've been keeping them as a memento of him in this case ever since. Looking at them makes me sad. Maybe this object is haunted by the curse that has been making my life miserable for the last few weeks.

I close the case and dig up an old dusty box from underneath my desk, hidden behind some other things. I've been keeping all kinds of stuff in it for years, stuff I don't need anymore, but can't or don't want to throw away. Time for Wesker's sunglasses to find their last resting place in there.

I put the case in, close the box and put it back to where it belongs since I moved in. This part of my life is finally over.

* * *

**~ The End ~**


End file.
